Kylee Peña's Blog

Let’s back up a couple decades. When I was a kid, I read a lot of books that dealt with shy homebodies that took adventures out of their comfort zones for heroic or accidental reasons, or sometimes both. It’s a pretty standard trope a lot of people enjoy. The first such story I read was called “Jenny Goes to Sea”, an old hardback book for new readers my library was throwing away when I was six. I rescued it, enjoyed its old-book-smell, and read it cover to cover many times over the years. It’s about a little cat named Jenny that winds up taking a trip on a boat around the world, stopping at different ports and meeting cats that live in foreign lands who teach her about their foods and customs. I loved the feeling I got from imagining taking a trip like this with Jenny — as a fellow cat, because again, I was like six. In my preteen years, it was another cat-goes-on-adventure book called “The Wild Road.” It was a legit novel similar to "Watership Down" but with felines that involved a hesitant hero of a cat saving creatures from an evil Alchemist. After that, I graduated to "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy (not cats!) — another story of an unlikely hero who has never left home that saves the world.

Buh-bye ATL.

I loved (and continue to love) these stories, and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that my favorite stories over the years have always carried this theme. It was the opposite of how I lived. As I’ve written before, I grew up pretty shy. I didn’t leave the midwest at all until I was 23. Venturing out into the world wasn’t something I did much of, but it was something I deeply desired to do. I naturally gravitate toward the IDEA of having an adventure nowadays, but making real decisions about uprooting? Starting over? That’s an entirely new thing. I don’t know about that.

But I knew I needed to do it, and I knew it needed to be LA. I’d wanted to live and work there for a really long time. It makes sense for anyone who hates winter and loves film editing, to make a long story short. So after much meandering, I left Atlanta last Saturday and headed west alone with a few belongings. I took I-20 to I-10, going through states I’d never even visited briefly. I crossed the Mississippi river, and the Rio Grande. I visited a nice man in a record store in Dallas. I got held up in Border Patrol traffic near El Paso and my phone jumped to a tower in Mexico. I slept through a tornado. I visited good friends I’d never met. I saw some of the most amazing countryside (or whatever you call it in the desert) I’d ever seen. After five days, I arrived in California. It was the best week I ever spent with myself. I am fabulous company, if I do say so myself.

Me and Mexico-ish.

For personal reasons, I didn’t openly share a lot of this online. But the people who did know about all reacted very similarly: “I’ve always thought about doing that.” For most people, it’s more like a romantic sort of “always thought about it”, in the same way they’ve always thought about taking a safari trip in Africa or learning French and moving to Paris. But for a good chunk of people, it was different. They seemed caught up like I had been for so long. Financial barriers. Self doubt. A little too comfortable. Self-imposed or life-imposed hurdles and challenges. A lot of seemingly unavoidable reasons to say “no, I can’t do that right now."

Meeting people along the way -- animator/tweeter Lisa Poje in AZ.

I’ve known a lot of people who did what I just did, leaving with a few personal things, some loose ends and a bit of savings. It’s kind of The Dream of going to a big city to start anew, basically a story-teling trope of its own kind because it’s so common. But I know a far greater number of people that should do the Thing but won’t because of Reasons. I don’t just mean following a career path to Los Angeles. I mean, whatever The Thing is that’s sitting in their head. The Thing they know they need to do to take their life in the direction it should go. “I can’t possibly do that. I’m not the kind of person that does a thing like that.”

The *legendary* Tim Wilson himself! :screamingemoji:

I said that to myself a thousand times. But it turns out I am the kind of person that does a thing like that, so I did. And so far, I strongly recommend it. It’s difficult and scary, especially for someone like me, but why spend your finite lifespan wishing you did The Thing when you can spend it living the way you want?

So anyway, I moved to LA this week. It’s fabulous. I love it. Do The Thing you need to do. Don't just read about it in children' books. Or blogs.

And now, a crummy commercial.

I had a pretty cool gig sorta lined up for Monday that fell through today, so taking this opportunity to grovel. I’m a rather good offline editor. I’m nearly on the roster, paperwork pending, and most of those editor credits are reality/documentary. The last few months I’ve been primarily working in dailies on scripted shows for networks like MTV, Sundance, BET, and CW — mostly dedicated to The Originals. If you let me choose, I’d continue to forge my way through scripted television by whatever means necessary. But I also like working in general, so I’ll take what you have for me. Extracurriculars: I write a lot (obviously), I have red hair, I bake, I collect vinyl. I'm neat.